Audience Guide 1 October 27- 29 Benedum Center |Pittsburgh Audience Guide Choreography Ben Stevenson Music by Franz Liszt Music arranged by John Lanchbery Sound Scenic Design Thomas Boyd Costume Design Judanna Lynn Lighting Design Timothy Hunter Lighting re-created by Christina R. Giannelli Dracula rehearsed by Li Anlin Assistant Artistic Director, Texas Ballet Theater Flying by Foy Pyrotechnic effects by Pyrotecnico Dracula is a co-production of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and Houston Ballet. World Premiere, Houston Ballet, March 13, 1997 Houston, Texas, Brown Theater at the Wortham Theater Center PBT gratefully acknowledges the following organizations for their commitment to our education programming: Allegheny Regional Asset District Highmark Foundation Anne L. and George H. Clapp Charitable Trust Peoples Natural Gas BNY Mellon Foundation Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Pennsylvania Department Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation of Community and Economic Development Eat ‘n Park Hospitality Group PNC Bank Grow up Great Edith L. Trees Charitable Trust PPG Industries, Inc. ESB Bank Richard King Mellon Foundation James M. and Lucy K. Giant Eagle Foundation Schoonmaker The Grable Foundation Hefren-Tillotson, Inc. The Heinz Endowments Cover Photograph: Cooper Verona, by Duane Rieder Henry C. Frick Educational Fund of The Buhl Foundation Produced by PBT Education Dept., October 2017 2 CONTENTS 3 About the Ballet 4 Synopsis 6 The Vampire Myth 6 The Dracula Story 8 A Literary Timeline 9 A Timeline of Dracula Films 9 The Choreography 12 The Music 14 The Costumes 16 Scenic Design 18 Theater Programs 19 Benedum Center 19 Accessibility About the Ballet Dracula premiered in 1997 both at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre and Houston Ballet as a co-production of the two companies. Houston Ballet Artistic Director Ben Stevenson assembled the artistic team and created the storyline and choreography. PBT shared the cost of the $1 million-dollar production and is co-owner of the ballet. This is the fifth time PBT has performed Dracula; our last production of the ballet was in 2011. Artist: Nurlan Abougaliev. Photo: Rich Sofranko 3 DRACULA SYNOPSIS Act I - Dracula’s Castle in Transylvania In the gloom of the evening, Count Dracula and his Brides awaken from their coffins in the crypt of his castle. Kidnapped by Dracula long ago, the Brides now exist in the world of the undead to entertain and serve the Count. A carriage arrives with Renfield, Dracula’s trusted henchman, and Flora, a lovely young woman from the village. She will become Dracula’s next bride. Act II: The Village The village square is bright and bustling with activity. The Innkeeper and his wife are celebrating the eighteenth birthday of their daughter Svetlana; all the villagers join in the merriment. Svetlana and Frederick are in love. She tells him that it’s about time they were engaged and playfully nudges him to ask her father for permission. The Innkeeper isn’t so keen on the idea at first but finally relents. The lovers joyfully dance together, and afterward, an old woman gives Svetlana a necklace of garlic blossoms. Suddenly, Flora staggers in — she is pale and looks ill. People reach out to her but she claws at them, collapsing. She is helped to a chair and when Svetlana tries to comfort her Flora snatches off Svetlana’s necklace. The priest notices in horror the bite marks on Flora’s neck; she springs up to attack the villagers. The Priest holds her off with his cross. Lightning streaks across the darkened village and Dracula appears. He’s been informed of the beauty of 4 Svetlana and has come to abduct her. Renfield and the carriage careen into the square; Frederick and the villagers try to save Svetlana but they’re no match for the vampire’s power. The carriage sweeps Svetlana away to the castle. Act III: The Bedroom of Count Dracula Flora and the other Brides await Dracula’s return. He enters, and Renfield drags in the terrified Svetlana. The Brides swarm around her, and Dracula commands them to prepare her for the wedding ceremony. Svetlana returns in a bridal gown; she struggles against him, but Dracula overpowers her. Renfield bursts into the room, warning Dracula that Frederick, the Innkeeper and the Priest are not far behind. Dracula summons the Brides, and a battle ensues. Finally, Frederick pulls down the curtain, and daylight spills into the room. Dracula recoils and, in a desperate attempt to escape, he flies up toward the chandelier. As the smoke clears, Frederick tenderly takes Svetlana in his arms. They dance together once again. Synopsis photo credits: Act 1 - Stephen Hadala and PBT artists; Act II - Julia Erickson and Stephen Hadala; Act III - Nurlan Abougaliev and Alexandra Kochis; Nurlan Abougaliev, Stephen Hadala, Julia Erickson. All photos by Rich Sofranko. 5 THE VAMPIRE MYTH Stories of vampire-like creatures can be found as far back in history as Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt. The vampire image we know today emerged during the 1700s in Eastern Europe—vampires were believed to be evil spirits who lurked in graveyards where they would enter dead bodies and awaken them to an “undead” state. Historians who’ve studied the belief in vampires have suggested that there may be a number of reasons for these myths to arise in a community, such as social or political upheaval or disease epidemics. Vampire myths are thought to have played a role in explaining diseases that were not understood at the time; vampire “scares” would sometimes erupt in the same region and at the same time as an outbreak of the plague or other diseases. Vampirism seems also to have roots in a misunderstanding of the decomposition of the body at death, humans’ fear of dying, the desire to reconnect with those who’ve died, and a desire to live forever. To ward off evil spirits from a loved one’s dead body, people placed weapons, garlic, seeds, and/or religious objects (like a crucifix) inside the coffin. Another method was to lay a brick inside the corpse’s mouth, so that a vampire couldn’t enter the dead body. For more information about vampire myths take a look at these articles on National Geographic’s website and at LiveScience.com. The last notable vampire scare in the U.S. was in 1892 in Rhode Island, when a young woman named Mercy Brown died of tuberculosis. Her family thought her undead spirit was returning and spreading the disease to them. Her father exhumed her corpse, removed her heart from her body, and burned it, to ensure that she would no longer be able to infect the family. THE DRACULA STORY Dracula author Bram (Abraham) Stoker (1847 - 1912) was an English civil servant, actor and theater manager. He began his writing career with a somewhat dry-sounding government manual (The Duties of Clerks and Petty Sessions in Ireland) as well a few short stories. He published his first novel in 1890 and soon began researching European folklore and stories about vampires. He published Dracula seven years later. 6 Dracula is told in a series of gripping diary and journal entries, ship log entries, telegrams and newspaper articles written by the main characters. Count Dracula, a vampire from Transylvania (the central part of present-day Romania), travels to Great Britain in a quest to find new blood and spread the undead curse. A young British lawyer, imprisoned in Dracula’s castle as the novel opens, escapes the clutches of Dracula’s brides at the castle and journeys back to England. He leads a small band, including his fiancé, a professor and a doctor, to track Dracula down, chase him back to Transylvania, and finally kill him. It is thought that Stoker ran across the name Dracula in his research for the book. Dracul (meaning dragon) was the clan name of 15th-century Romanian ruler Vlad II. His son, Vlad III (Dracula, or son of Dracul), was also known as ‘Vlad the Impaler,’ who is said to have brutally killed tens of thousands of invading Ottoman Turks by impaling them on stakes set in Romanian forests. At the last minute before publication, Stoker substituted the more alluring Dracula for the original name he’d chosen for the character (Count Wampyr). He also changed the title from The Un-Dead to Dracula. When Dracula was published in 1897 it was well-received but it wasn’t a blockbuster: readers and reviewers saw it as not much more than an entertaining horror story. Dracula didn’t reach legendary status until it was adapted for movie versions in the 20th century. The vampire image that Stoker created would become the definitive vampire across the globe. More about Bram Stoker can be found at Encyclopedia Britannica. You can read the original novel at Gutenberg.org. Photo credit: wikipedia.org, public domain, photographer not known. The original type-written manuscript of Dracula was found in a barn in northwestern Pennsylvania in 1980! It was purchased by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and is in his private collection. 7 A LITERARY TIMELINE Vampires began to appear in Western literature during the early 18th century, and their popularity as literary subjects has never faded. Here is a sampling of a few of the hundreds (if not thousands) of vampire stories. 1748 - The Vampire, a poem by Heinrich August Ossenfelder. One of the first works of art to depict a vampire, in this poem a rejected lover threatens to visit his love interest every night to drink her blood through a vampire kiss. 1797 - The Bride of Corinth, a poem by Goethe. A young woman returns from the dead to her bridegroom, “the lifeblood of his heart to drink.” 1819 - The Vampyre, a novel by John Polidori.